Drug Enforcement Administration

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is a governmental agency of the United States that was founded on 1 July 1973 with the goal of enforcing drug laws and apprehending drug traffickers. President Richard Nixon passed the Controlled Substances Act on 27 October 1970 to regulate narcotics and other drugs, and the DEA was created to enforce the act. During the late 1970s and for all of the 1980s, the DEA worked overtime to prevent the smuggling of cocaine, marijuana, and other drugs into the USA from countries such as Colombia, Bolivia, and Mexico. The DEA's operations in America typically consisted of busting drug dealers, but it worked abroad to assist governments against traffickers overseas in areas such as the "Golden Triangle" in Southeast Asia and in Latin America.